Notes and Editorial Reviews

Reissued by ArkivMusic, this boxed set is the complete edition from EMI of the Hugo Wolf Society recordings. Begun during the depression, and through a novel markting concept, funded by public subscription, these recordings are a fascinating exploration of one of the greatest Lieder composers and the greatest exponents of his art before World War II.

"Seventy years ago, just after the invention of electrical recording changed the gramophone from a semiserious toy to an instrument capable of recording all types of music with something approaching reasonable fidelity, the classical catalogues were heavily circumscribed; many of the more popular symphonies and concertos were available, and being constantly added to;Read more the voice, and particularly operatic music, was heavily favoured, and the recording of chamber music had at last got under way. But two categories of classical music remained almost ignored: German Lieder (and its French counterpart) and the sonata.

To remedy this situation the conception of ‘Society’ editions, consisting of a limited, subscribed issue of records devoted to a particular facet of a composer’s work, was floated in 1931. The first such edition was the Hugo Wolf Society, the fruits of which are presented in this CD reissue...

The [Elena] Gerhardt records for the Society were made in London in November 1931. After the first tests came through a few sides were rejected, and replacements were made in December of that year. The rest is history.

The Hugo Wolf Society Volume One became one of the most desired rarities of the 78rpm era; five more volumes, recorded by a wonderful gallery of singers, were to follow before World War II brought the series to an end.

But not quite! In 1981, a careful study of dates and matrix numbers of the Wolf Society volumes revealed that several recordings were held over from one year (and one volume) to the next, presumably due to the problems of getting the artists in the right place at the right time. So it was not really surprising to discover that Janssen and Lemnitz had made several unissued titles. Furthermore, a 1937 session with Ludwig Weber, written up in Walter Legge’s handwriting as For the Hugo Wolf Society’. was also found in the Archive. Other titles by Marta Fuchs and Karl Erb, recorded in 1937 and separately issued for a brief spell later, formed the basis of a supplementary volume of Wolf Society material published in 1981 in the LP reissue.

It is, of course, impossible to say whether all this material would have been used for subsequent volumes had the political situation in 1938—9 not made further Wolf Society releases inopportune. All five Lemnitz titles were issued on LP in Germany in 1967, and three were included in 1981, but in this 1998 CD edition
Auf eine Christblume I and
Schlafendes Jesuskind also appear. Furthermore, the only remaining unpublished recordings from the Society sessions (featuring Janssen, Kipnis and Gerhardt) have now been discovered in the Archive. These, together with two further Janssen titles (recorded in 1938, but issued outside the Society volumes), conclude this reissue which we now feel able to describe as the Complete Edition’ of the Hugo Wolf Society recordings.

The legacy of Walter Legge’s extraordinary venture between 1931 and 1938 — recordings of 145 of Wolf’s songs in 148 performances (only three songs are duplicated) by 14 exceptional singers — is now available to a new generation of music lovers in an edition which we hope does justice to Legge’s achievement."

The collection of Wolf Lieder promoted in the 1930s by HMV's Hugo Wolf Society, a collection that even today remains of major interest and is illuminating in terms of performance technique, has for me lost none of its impact in promoting the works of the great Austrian composer.
The variety presented in these interpretations is as great as the wide range of singers performing them.
I remember these records gave me some of my earliest impressions of the nature of Wolf's lieder. One may expect the collection also to excite enormous interest today.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau [foreword to this edition]

The wonderful songs of Hugo Wolf were a life-long passion for Walter Legge. Even in 1931, in his mid-twenties, he was already exploring this great treasury of German art-song in the first of HMV's pioneering 'Society' editions.
Later, Walter and I, with Gerald Moore and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, would journey together in further explorations of the work of one of the most perfect of all Lieder composers. But in the 1930s, with an earlier generation of singers, Walter was able to present, to a public largely unfamiliar with Wolf's music, recordings of over half of the composer's songs.
The performances, even now, persuade us of the sureness of Walter Legge's instincts, both in presenting Hugo Wolf as a composer worthy of the most serious consideration (both by the music-lover and by a great record company), and in assembling a gallery of great singers who were able to reveal the composer's genius.

Sign up now for two weeks of free access to the world's best classical music collection. Keep listening for only $19.95/month - thousands of classical albums for the price of one! Learn more about ArkivMusic Streaming